In
Ban's
UN, Amid Nepotism & Threats of Firing, Mobility
Memo Unveiled
By
Matthew
Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
April 5 -- Noticing as many in
the UN have a decidedly
anti-labor trend in Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's administration,
Inner City Press on March 17 asked Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky, as
an example, about threats being made against the elevator operators,
to be replaced with non-union contractors.
Nesirky
said
he
would look into it, then in
the hallway outside the briefing room
berated Inner City Press that “you asked a question about elevators
when the rest of the world is wondering about nuclear meltdown and
wondering what's happening in Cote d'Ivoire to tens of thousands of
people.”
Now
that the UN
in
Cote d'Ivoire has shooting missiles from attack helicopters
contracted from Ukraine, we have these UN labor updates:
The
elevator
operators began circulating a flier trying to save their jobs, asking
people to call the person at Facilities Management who seemed to be
making the decision. That person, named on the attached flier,
then
reportedly threatened that any elevator operator or other worker
caught circulating the flier would be fired.
The
UN TV and
other audio engineers in the UN continue to face a reduction in wages
and benefits, combined with what many call inappropriate pressure to
re-apply for their own jobs, in a unit said to be run by the wife of
the official who has been in charge of the unit and outside
contractor for some time. (Nepotism
seems to many to be a trend in Ban's UN, see here.)
The
moves are not
limited to elevator operators and sound engineers. In a confidential
memo from Ban's chief of staff Vijay Nambiar to his chief of
management Angela Kane and head of the UN Office of Human Resource
Management Catherine Pollard, it is suggested that “40 percent of
total recruitment in every Department every year be set aside for
applicants external to the Department.”
The
memo, which
Inner City Press is putting
online here, also muses “from 30,000
feet” as one staff member to whom Inner City Press showed the memo
put it, about lateral moves and changes in geographic location.
Inner
City Press
first wrote about these policy changes, for which senior officials
were summoned to Ban's third floor of the North Lawn building, and
which some of those named have said they will not implement, announce
or be responsible for until Ban himself returns to New York and
associates himself with, on March 17,
before Nesirky's above quoted
outburst.
UN's Ban & Kane over left
shoulder, Nambiar over right, mobility memo
not shown
Because
since
then Nesirky has not provided any substantive answers to questions
Inner City Press has asked about the elevator operators or audio
engineers -- or irregularities found by the UN's own Office of
Internal Oversight Services in its delayed UNOJA technology project
-- Inner City Press asked Ms. Kane herself of April 4 about the memo.
We
think about a
lot of things, Ms. Kane said. But when you write about them it makes
trouble.
Well,
yes.
That is a purpose of journalism. These things should be known and
debated by the people impacted by them. Even when OIOS found
multiple
irregularities in hiring and contracting in UNOJA, there has been no
accountability.
Rather
than any action on the high level individual
named as responsible for the irregularities -- doctoring resumes to
hire his friends, for example -- a lower level employee has been
scapegoated. We willl have more on this.
So
while Ban
Ki-moon maneuvers, as with attack helicopters, to get a second terms
as UN Secretary General, workers are threatened with firing for
distributing fliers, lower level workers are scapegoated, and Press
questions are either ignored or attacked or discouraged in the
hallways.
So it is, at least
for now, in Ban Ki-moon's UN. Watch
this site.
From the
UN's
noon
briefing transcript of March 17:
Inner
City
Press: this maybe seems under your radar, but there are the
elevator operators here in the UN are saying… many of them are
saying that they are going to be removed from their jobs or replaced
at much lower wages on 28 March. Although this is maybe a certain
outside contract, it sure is similar to the issues that arose in the
cafeteria and now with UNTV and Radio. And I wonder, is the UN…
supposedly, actually, Joan McDonald, who I believe has now left that
position in [Facilities Management Services], is he aware of this,
what’s the UN position on long-time workers in the UN having their
wages either much reduced or being taken out of their jobs this
month?
Spokesperson
Nesirky:
Well, I think you’ve actually hinted at part of the
answer in your question, and that is that where external contractors
are involved, the United Nations does not have any say on those
contractual obligations between an employee and the external
contractor. If I have anything further from our colleagues who deal
with that relationship with the external contractor then I’d let
you know.
But
Nesirky never
did provide any information. Rather, worker who distributed fliers
about the situation were threatened with firing. After complaints
including from outside the UN, the elevator operations have been given
a one month reprieve. And now what? Watch this site.
* * *
